Now that the election has been called, I'll be out campaigning from early in the morning till late at night so, as a rule, I am going to post once a day round about this time summarising my day.

This morning, I watched Brown's statement outside 10 Downing Street with the Cabinet standing behind him (many of whom, we know, don't want him as Prime Minister either) and David Cameron's statement on the South Bank with the Houses of Parliament as a backdrop , which I thought struck exactly the right tone. In the past, he has been criticised for not offering 'clear blue water' - certainly on the doorstep you often get people saying "You're all the same" - so I particularly liked his emphasis on the need for real change, not just a bit of tinkering here and there. But I thought the strongest section was the passage where, pointing to the Houses of Parliament behind him, he said he wanted to "make people feel proud again of that building over there thinking 'Yes, it's my Parliament, it's my government, it answers to me not the other way round'".

As soon as the election had been announced, I sent an email to thousands of households across Croydon Central summarising why I am standing (see previous post) and then it was time to hit the streets. This afternoon, we delivered our first leaflet to much of New Addington, spent some time handing out leaflets outside the shops on Central Parade then it was off to Arena tramstop then some delivering in Addiscombe. We got a good response, with a number of people saying they hadn't voted Conservative before but they would be this time to get Labour out.

So all in all a good day - it certainly helped that the sun was shining! Having been a candidate for nearly 26 months, it's a relief that the campaign is finally underway. One slight cause for concern - because we're the only party that has regularly delivered leaflets over the last couple of years (our current MP only seems to do it in the run-up to elections) a number of people think I am the MP. Ordinarily that would be good news, but given the way MPs have behaved in the last few years this is an election where being the incumbent is a disadvantage!